experimental
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Timing. Isn’t that what life’s all about? If you’re there at the right moment, it all works out. If you’re there late, you’re at someone else’s fate. If you’re there too early, all that effort might not be for naught. If you’re speaking about Japan’s Kusu Kusu (and their album, 世界が一番幸せな日 (Sekai Ga Ichiban Shiawase…
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There is no harder thing for a music reviewer to do than categorize music that’s, quite simply, uncategorizable. Especially so when it’s trying to pigeonhole or describe Chito Kawachi’s jaw-droppingly, unclassifiable 1993 debut, チトチック/クラクラ (CHITOTIHC/KULA-kura).
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How does one bridge the span between our past and an uncertain future? If you can put yourself inside the mind of one, Kazuo Uehara, perhaps you can deduce that answer. You see, it was he who had the same question. It was sometime in the ‘60s, while listening to The Beatles’s “Revolution #9”, that…
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You know, sometimes I’m as much of a wanderer as you are. There are stories I’d love to really tell but (try as I may) I run into a limitation called: written history. Catherine Le Forestier’s Music Of Aziza is just one of those creations that merits more discovery than what I can share today.
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In this day and age, when there’s no lack of opinions, I go back to a few personal heroes. When I think about putting yourself out there, to think beyond borders and history, my mind goes back to Patty Pravo. One always goes back and wonders: What was going on in her mind when she…
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“I have aimed at creating with my work, a music at one with nature. Nature is melodic within itself, without abstaining from true harmony. Everything is sound. Everything is music.” — Carlos Pacini Aires da Silva Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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It’s easy to feel untethered when you’re listening to Chen Guoping’s (aka John Chen) Songs From Within (心意). Oscillating across various styles — jazz, neoclassical, ambient, traditional, and New Age — the album itself never feels anchored to any specific border. The main protagonist in this collection, John Chen’s fingerpicking, acts like a liaison speaking…
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With the recent passing of the late, great Jon Hassell, I think it’s important to break down something worthwhile he’d be proud of playing a role in: Francesco Paladino’s Eroi A Rio. Twelve tracks. If to be believed, inspired by a vivid dream Francesco had where he recorded a concert held in 1993 at the…
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Truth be told, few records in my collection sound like Esther Ofarim’s Complicated Ladies. Well, truth be told, few albums will ever sound like it either…in anyone’s collection. A mixture of Israeli melismatic jazz with German liedermacher wouldn’t sound too out of the ordinary (at least in some circles). However, let’s say someone decided to…
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If one can remember anything of French-Lebanese musician Gabriel Yacoub, it’s of the time he fronted progressive folk group Malicorne. Under Malicorne, one could hear ideas fomented from prior work with the Alan Stivell band. A mix of forgotten Breton music and experimental folk, Malicorne sounded like little else (closest brethren being Clannad, elsewhere). As…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic